Formerly unhoused mother finds solace at new Genesis Homes transitional facility in Jackson
The Care Center has been saving lives since 1992, providing transitional housing, resources, and a second chance at life for women and their children. Amber Tovar is currently one of them.
Tovar is a resident of the Care Center's newly built Genesis Homes facility, which held its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday.
The last seven years of Tovar's life have been plagued with cycles of substance abuse, homelessness, and incarceration.
Today, she finds herself in the embrace of the Care Center, rebuilding her life one day at a time.
Under the umbrella of the existing Care Center on Liberty Street, the grant-funded, 3,100-square-foot facility is the first of six homes to be built as part of the Genesis Homes initiative. Upon completion, it will provide transitional housing to 72 women and children.
The complex will consist of the director's home and six residential homes — each housing 12 women — and fully equipped with six bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen, laundry room, small office and a common area.
During their tenure, the women live a structured life where they learn how to budget, pay a weekly income-based rent not exceeding $120, and access services like counseling and job training.
Continuing its 31-year journey and operating under the guiding pillars of "rescue, redeem, and restore," the Care Center has helped more than 4,400 women and children overcome substance abuse, homelessness, and abusive relationships.
More: Groundbreaking of women's shelter downtown, provides transitional housing
More: First homeless shelter for men breaks ground in Jackson
Though everyone's time at the Care Center is individualized, with no minimum or maximum time to be spent, executive director Nathan Young says long-term stays are encouraged.
"We tried to build something of quality, so that when they live here they're proud of where they live, they're proud of who they are, and they're proud of what God has done for their life," he said.
The completion of the remaining Genesis Homes is yet to be determined.
From homelessness to hope
A native of the Scotts Hill area in Henderson County, Tovar says her lifestyle continued for as long as it did due to a lack of available resources in the community.
Sleeping under bridges between stints of jail time while simultaneously battling liver disease, she was determined to stop the cycle.
"Where I come from there's no resources, especially for women," she said.
"Once you've been put into the system, it's cycling over and over and a lot of times because you have nowhere to go, no stepping stones or anything like that, then it makes it very easy to go back into being abused and in bad situations and that's what my life was like for seven years."
By her own accord, she came to the Care Center in January 2023 where she stayed for about three months before being re-incarcerated later that year.
"I don't think anybody gets it right the first time," Tovar said.
Upon release, the court allowed her to return to a transitional program in place of a one-year sentence. She returned in November and believes that the center has saved her life.
Though her court orders mandate a one-year tenure at the Care Center, she has no plans of leaving when it's up.
"It makes sense for me to stay where I'm at and continue to take advantage of all I can because, for me, going back home, there's no good there for me and already my life has become something that I couldn't have imagined," she said.
Tovar now celebrates six months of sobriety, and through various treatments, has been able to reverse her liver disease, allowing her to be the healthiest she's been in nearly a decade.
"I've been able to get back to normalcy that I haven't known in years," she said.
Sarah Best is a reporter for The Jackson Sun. To support local journalism, subscribe to the Daily Briefing here.
This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: Previously unhoused mother shares how Jackson Care Center saved her
